English Is A Foreign Language Online

For Online Businesses it’s time to start thinking about Marketing in different languages. There was a time when we all thought English would emerge as the dominant language online. But now I starting to rethink this. It seems that English Is A Foreign Language Online.

A key point to consider is that, despite the massive growth in foreign language markets online, there is still relatively far less content in languages other than English – and that means there is dramatically less competition for your Internet Marketing campaigns. Foreign language Internet Marketing can delivers better ROI and faster results, for online Marketers.

Here are some interesting statistics… The foreign language internet is growing at a rapid rate –
Over the last 10 years: (according to Internet World Stats

Arabic has grown by 2501.2 percent

Russian has grown by 1825.8 percent

Chinese has grown by 1478.7 percent

Portuguese has grown by 990.1 percent

While English has only grown by 301.4 percent

As with any other Online Marketing campaigns, you need to do the same basic steps:

Market Research

Keyword Research

Traffic Generation (PPC / PPV)

A great Market Research tool is: Google’s Global Market Finder This is a great resource to get an overall idea of the search volume for your top keywords in international markets. Here you can automatically translate keywords related to your company’s products or services into 56 languages. Then it ranks the countries with the highest monthly search volumes for the terms, and provides a “suggested bid” for your PPC ads. (How cool is that!)

Not only does it show you the monthly average of how many searches have been undertaken for a specific key term, but it also suggests top translated keywords, and tells you whether the local customers have also been searching in English or some other language.

Also, you need to be aware of the “Local” language customs when considering your Keyword Research. English words do not always translate directly into other languages, and have the same meaning to a local person there. It would be ideal to have a native speaker to get some feedback from, and to look over your work.

Overall, expanding your marketing into foreign languages can be quite profitable, and well worth the effort. The world is becoming global, and online business is growing faster in other countries outside of the US. So, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get your share of this huge expanding market. Think International!